I am a huge fan of Pedro Almodovar, and have loved every one of his films that I’ve seen. That is, until now.
The title of his latest movie might be I’m So Excited but it left me singularly unexcited and unenthusiastic. I’ve never been so disengaged from an Almodovar film in my life and I’m still trying to work out what went wrong and why I found it so dreary. Was it the stilted dialogue, the wooden acting (even from Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, who put in a couple of cameos), or the implausible storyline? Well, to be honest, most Almodovar movies have somewhat implausible and surreal plots, and that’s never bothered me before. In fact, that’s part of their charm.
The film is billed as a comedy, but, apart from a few isolated one liners, I found it distinctly unfunny. Maybe the humour was dissipated by my having to read the subtitles (I don’t speak Spanish), but I’ve never found language to be a bar in previous Almodovar movies. The fact that the majority of this movie takes place within the confines of the business section and cockpit of a plane certainly doesn’t help, and, because of this, nowhere is there the kind of visual richness normally experienced in one of his movies. In addition, I found the camp antics and stereotypical behaviour of the all gay air stewards rather insulting. Haven’t we moved on from this kind of camperie? Honestly they could have been played by Liberace, Larry Grayson and John Inman and you wouldn’t have noticed the difference.
I’m guessing the film is an allegory, the plane being a metaphor for the disastrous Spanish economy, the somnolent economy class passengers being representative of the majority of the populace, who are kept in the dark about what’s going on, whilst the ruling classes, in business class, run around like headless chickens, but I could be wrong and, quite honestly, I don’t really care. It is just one big self-indulgent bore, naïve and badly executed. Unless you’re particularly partial to watching undragged up drag queens mime to the Pointer Sisters, then I’d say avoid.
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"Greg Mitchell has lived in central London for over 20 years and has somehow managed to avoid the rat race by adapting himself to a variety of different jobs. Actor, singer, dancer - chauffeur, delivery driver, sales assistant - pornstar, escort, gogo daddy - and now tantric masseur and writer. You name it, he's done it."
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